It shall be recognised that the resolution of the First
All-Russia Conference on the cultural and educational work of the trade
unions is at variance with the resolution of the Tenth Congress of the
R.C.P. on the Chief Committee for Political Education and its relations
with the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions
(§ 2).[1]

The resolution of the Congress of Gubernia Political Education
Departments[2] shall be confirmed as a whole and the Chief Committee
for Political Education shall be directed, within a month and in agreement
with the A.G.C.T.U. to draw up detailed practical instructions giving
concrete definitions of the forms of “joint” work by both institutions
and the forms in which the trade unions and their bodies are to “use” the
“apparatus and staff” of the Chief Committee for Political
Education.[3]

Notes

[1]The First All-Russia Conference on Trade Union Cultural and
Educational Work was held in Moscow from September 26 to October 1,
1921. It was attended by 173 delegates (122 voting delegates and
51 with a consultative voice), of whom 419 were Communists, 51
non-Party people, 1 Menslievik, I Socialist-Revolutionary and I inter-party
socialist. There were 13 items on the agenda of the conference, which
included reports of the A.C.C.T.U.’s Culture Department, the Peoples’
Commissariat for Education and its chief administrations, and Proletcult;
reports from the local areas (Donbas, Petrograd, Baku); the New Economic
Policy and education; the trade union’s work of polit-ical education;
cultural work among the youth, and other items. The conference mapped out
ways for improving the trade unions’ work of political education, and new
forms and methods under the New Economic Policy (cultural work at private
and leased enterprises, and so on).

The conference adopted a wrong stand on the question of
relations with the Chief Committee for Political Education. Its resolution
(“Role and Aims of the Trade Unions’ Cultural Work”) contained a demand
that the trade unions’ cultural work should be freed from the influence of
the Chief Committee for Political Education. This ran counter to the
resolution of the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. “On the Chief Committee for
Political Educa-tion and the Agitation and Propaganda Tasks of the Party”
(see The C.P.S, U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses,
Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee, Part 1,
1954, p. 550).

[2]Lenin is referring to the resolution of the Second All-Russia Congress
of Political Education Departments (held from October 17 to 22, 1921) “On
the Reports of the Chief Committee for Political Education”, which defined
the relations between the political education departments and the trade
unions’ culture departments centrally and locally. “The trade unions,”
ran this resolution, “constantly lapse into the entirely erroneous view
that educational work in all forms should be the business of the trade
unions, that the trade unions would be better able to conduct the business
of education than the educational authorities.

”Their point of view is erroneous and. stems from
misinter-pretation of the tasks of the trade unions. Adherence to such a
point of view would induce the conclusion that all state functions, the
work of all the commissariats, should be turned over to the trade unions”
(Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education
Departments. Congress Bulletin No. 7, October 24, 1921).

The resolution of the congress mapped out concrete
measures for the joint ideological, political, cultural and educational
work of the Chief Committee for Political Education and the Culture
Department of the A.C.C.T.U.

[3]The Politbureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) decided on November 8, 1921, to
adopt as a basis Lenin’s resolution. In accordance with this decision
regulations were drafted for the joint political education work of the
A.C.C.T.U.’s Culture Department and the Chief Committee for Political
Education.